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Bibliothèque | Type de document | Numéro de cote topographique | Nombre d'enregistrements enfants | Emplacement | Statut | Réservations du document |
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Recherche en cours... Science | Book | 813.54 SA565W, 1997 | 1 | Stacks | Recherche en cours... Inconnu | Recherche en cours... Indisponible |
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Résumé
Résumé
From the acclaimed author of Sorrow Floats, Social Blunders, and Skipped Parts , comes a wickedly funny novel about love, marriage, and life. When Loren Paul spends too much time contemplating the meaning of life, his gorgeous, headstrong wife Lana Sue drives South to meet some cowboys. While Lana Sue drinks and flirts in country bars, Loren soul searches and starves in the Wyoming mountains. Loren and Lana Sue couldn't be on more different paths, but they're both steering toward the same surprising truth: maybe they deserve each other.
Critiques (4)
Critique du Publishers Weekly
Loren Paul, a 35-year-old writer of westerns, sits on an isolated Wyoming mountaintop in a semi-delirious state from a long fast, waiting for divine guidance. He is literally waiting to hear from God, since he feels that God has a lot of explaining to do. Loren wants to know, for example, why his only child disappeared on a camping trip many years ago, a tragedy that led to the death of his first wife. And why has his second and current wife, Lana Sue, a sexy and free-spirited country-and-western singer, taken to the open road, forsaking their idyllic domestic nest? Despite the end-of-the-line sense of desperation evoked by this situation, this is a droll and high-spirited novel about the eccentric lives and loves of Loren and his footloose wife. For just as Loren sits on a mountaintop aerie reflecting on his life, Lana Sue, whose past seems the embodiment of the country-and-western songs she adores, is off on her own odyssey of self-discovery. Her route, however, is a little different: she seeks headlong solace in the sweet oblivion of one-night stands, although quickly gets herself entangled in a relationship that tests her plucky cowgirl mettle to its fullest. There is something of the loopy invention and drollery of Tom Robbins in Sandlin's voice. Particularly in the early parts of the book, Sandlin (Sex and Sunsets) overindulges his fondness for whimsy, but once the narrative gets underway he reveals solid storytelling talent and the ability to create two vividly sympathetic characters whose adventures have something of the grit and pathos of a funky country-and-western ballad. (April) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Critique de Kirkus
Sandlin's baggy, woebegone second novel has a smidgen of plot, two (alternating) narrators, and three major preoccupations: country music, sex, and unhappy families. The narrators (and leads) are 35-year-old writer Loren Paul and 38-year-old Lana Sue, sometime country singer and Loren's eventual wife; their intertwined stories span 20 years (1964-84) and three states. Loren hates his Texas childhood (no respect from his low-rent family) but during college in Colorado was salvaged by a Good Woman called Ann, a fugitive from a crazy, violent father. Loren moves in with Ann and her baby Buggie (the lather is out of the picture) to enjoy several years of domestic peace until Buggie disappears, just like that, and guilt-ridden Ann commits suicide. Meanwhile, Lana Sue has been living more adventurously: a brief teen-age escape from her awful family, two periods on the road as a country singer, two marriages, two kids, and men, men, men. Eighteen years after their first accidental meeting in Houston, Loren and Lana Sue have a second accidental meeting in Denver; this time they connect and everything goes fine until Loren (a death-and-mysticism freak) climbs a Wyoming mountain to ask God about the Buggie thing (this is the plot-smidgen). He is stalked and almost killed by Ann's crazy father before being rescued by Lana Sue, who has decided, following a sobering brush with a fourth awful family, that her marriage to freaky Loren is workable after all. As implausible as Sandlin's debut novel, Sex and Sunsets (1987), but without that work's redeeming comic touches. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Critique de Booklist
Thrice-divorced and a semiprofessional country-and-western singer, Lana Sue Paul is not about to sit still while her fourth husband, Loren, sets out for the hills of Wyoming armed only with a box of Fig Newtons and the nature tips he has gleaned from reading Max Brand westerns. So, while her husband hikes into the mountains in search of a vision, Lana Sue hightails it to the Outlaw Inn, looking for a bottle of scotch and a one-night stand. She is soon drawn into the domestic trials of a wealthy rancher and his cantankerous children. Meanwhile, rather than experiencing an idyllic communing with nature, Loren is ducking the potshots of a mysterious stranger. Although Sandlin sometimes strives a bit too hard for comic effect, his is a raucous, good-natured novel. JW. [CIP] 87-23601
Critique du Library Journal
In the Tom Robbins-Rita Mae Brown tradition of humor comes this hilarious novel of Loren Paul, a Western writer who is currently atop a mountain seeking answers to cosmic questions, and his wife, Lana Sue, a much-married country-and-western singer. She leaves Loren, and they take turns telling their stories; so while Loren remembers his past and muses on the meaning of life, Lana Sue starts out on a series of one-night stands that eventually involve an almost suicide, murderous intentions, and lots of raunch. This is a Western in the most modern sense, and humor is definitely ``black.'' The dialogue is snappy, the characters richly drawn, and the detail such that we know not only the kind of gum but how many sticks. Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Lib., Seaside, Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.